One type of memory known in the art is low power synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), which is also known as mobile random access memory (Mobile-RAM). Mobile-RAM is a low power synchronous DRAM designed especially for mobile applications, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), handheld computers, etc. Mobile-RAMs achieve high speed transfer rates by employing a chip architecture that pre-fetches multiple bits and then synchronizes the output data to a system clock.
Reducing the power consumption of portable electronic devices and thereby increasing the battery life of those portable electronic devices continues to be an area of focus in the development of portable electronic devices. Typically, the power consumption of portable electronic devices, including the power consumption of the memory utilized by those portable electronic devices, is a design concern since battery life is an important feature of portable electronic devices. In many portable electronic devices, the memory consumes power even when the memory is not being accessed by the portable electronic device.